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Adoration of the Shepherds Oil painting on canvas attributed to Luca Cattapane

About the Item

Luca Cattapane (Cremona, 1597-1620), attr. Adoration of the Shepherds Oil on canvas, 110 x 90 cm - with frame 129 x 101 cm Ascribed to the Lombard school of the late 16th century, the painting more accurately exhibits Cremonese characteristics: research conducted on artists active in that area suggests attribution to Luca Cattapane. The silence of historical sources does not allow us to trace a biography of the painter, whose dates of birth and death are unknown, while documented is his apprenticeship with Vincenzo Campi, whose naturalistic research he would continue, freeing himself from the Malossian manner, so much so that in 1929 Roberto Longhi commenting on the Decolation of St. John the Baptist-now in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Cremona-described him as a little missed Caravaggio. The canvas under consideration testifies to the luministic direction inferred from the works of Antonio Campi, as can be seen by observing the altarpiece of the same subject in Santa Maria della Croce in Crema, while the style of the expressions and caricatured characters are consequential to those devised by Vincenzo Campi. Knowledge of Luca Cambiaso and his famous nocturnes should not be excluded from Cattapane's training. Further corroborating the attributive motives is a comparison with the Adoration of the Shepherds preserved in the Diocese of Lodi, which has a similar scenic layout and where some figures show interesting formal similarities. In this regard we point out the faces of the shepherds, whose profiles and anatomical structures correspond to those painted in our composition. The image exudes a remarkable expressive and monumental force, supported by the descriptive intent of the faces that stand out from the dark backdrop with Pre-Caravaggesque sensitivity. Also inferred is the old reference to Jacopo Bassano and Veronese portraiture, but here translated with sobriety and naturalistic desire. In this regard, note the offerings laid on the illuminated ground in the foreground: the basket filled with eggs, the lamb, the palm tree, and the cross. As for the 'night-light' setting, we cannot help but mention the great predecessors such as Lotto (note the Nativity at Night preserved at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena), Savoldo (see the Adoration preserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington) and the aforementioned Giovanni Battista Trotti (the Malosso), whose great Adoration preserved at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan is proposed. After all, the "night time" setting was the element that fostered the critical fortune of Cattapane, who was considered one of the best painters already by part of ancient Cremonese art literature and thus remembered both in his biographies and in ancient guides to the city. Luigi Lanzi was the first to juxtapose his signature nightlight effects with Caravaggesque research, writing, "In the rest, either in wanting to create his own style, or to conform to Caravaggio, he painted more gloom than the Campi and with better choice. [...]" Citing the Madonna and Child with Saints Anthony and Paul I preserved in the Cremona Cathedral or the Madonna with Saints Francis and Nicholas exhibited in the Cremona Town Hall, we can instead find that the physiognomy of the face of the St. John Child is similar to that of the children (indifferently the Christ or the St. John Child) in the other three paintings. A preparatory drawing by Luca Cattapane depicting the face of a child has appeared on the English antiques market: the same physiognomy used to render the other children in the paintings, including the one in our canvas, also emerges in this sketch.
  • Attributed to:
    Luca Cattapane (1597 - 1620, Italian)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 50.79 in (129 cm)Width: 39.77 in (101 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2639213033272

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